Collection, and is described in the catalogue as: “Item zwei H. Holbeins mit olfarb gmalte täfelin darin Christus vnd Maria in eim ghüs, mit steinfarb.” VOL. I., PLATE 33. [Illustration: CHRIST, THE MAN OF SORROWS Diptych, painted in brown monochrome, with blue sky BASEL GALLERY ] [Illustration: MARY, MATER DOLOROSA Diptych, painted in brown monochrome, with blue sky BASEL GALLERY ] [Sidenote: DRAWING OF THE “HOLY FAMILY”] There is a drawing in the Basel Gallery representing the “Holy Family” (Pl. 34),[223] which is remarkable for the rich setting of Renaissance architecture in which Holbein has placed his figures. The arrangement is so elaborate that the latter at first appear to be of only secondary importance. On the topmost of a flight of steps the Infant Christ is learning to walk, his hands held by his mother and Anna, who are seated on either side of him. On the left the aged Joachim, whose pronounced features recall more than one head in the earlier “Passion” series, is looking on from behind a pillar, while Joseph stands with his arm round another pillar on the opposite side. Behind the group is a semicircular niche, the upper part scalloped like a shell, supported by columns and outstanding pillars, the latter with a sculptured frieze of putti round the base. The capitals of the columns and the frieze which they support are decorated with foliated designs in which figures are mingled. A lunette in the arch which crowns the niche is ornamented in a similar way, and contains a tablet with the signature “Hans Hol.” Over a projecting cornice is a sculptured figure of Samson slaying the lion. The architectural motive throughout is strongly Italian, and, indeed, in parts bears a striking resemblance to the Porta della Rana of the cathedral of Como,[224] while the whole drawing furnishes still further strong evidence that Holbein must have crossed the Alps, and that designs such as this were not mere efforts of his imagination. It is a pen drawing on a brown-red ground, washed with grey-black and heightened with white in the parts where the light falls, and its date is about 1520 or 1521. It is a study for a picture, or, more probably, for a wall-painting, to be placed at some height, as the horizon-line is well below the level of the ground. The strongly-marked perspective of the background, too, which slants rapidly towards the right, suggests such a purpose, and that it was to form the left wing of some considerable scheme of wall decoration, with a more important central subject, and a corresponding right wing. A smaller drawing, also at Basel, of the same date and style, a pen and wash drawing, heightened with white on a grey ground, represents the Virgin, seated on a similar high step between two pillars, suckling the Child.[225] With the exception of the two columns, one of which is unfinished, the background is left blank, but in the